One of the many things I am is a STEM Ambassador. I have talked about this in a previous blog post, but STEM Ambassadors are volunteers that support sessions and run clubs and other activities in schools.
I've been wanting to run a CodeClub for a while. Codeclub a volunteer-led after-school club that aims to teach children to code using Scratch, a visual programming language developed at MIT, and I’m very excited to finally have found an opportunity at a school in a village in Cumbria!
I just had my first session in the school today and taught the kids to make a spaceship animation in Scratch. They absolutely loved it, and they were very enthusiastic! I also do a better job at teaching that I thought I would and I get along well with the teacher and students. I'm looking forward to knowing what the Scratch material for next week is, and teaching again!
I would also like to take the opportunity to thank my employer, Shadowcat Systems, for giving me the ability to do this on company time; this would not be possible otherwise. They are pretty awesome and do a lot of other community work as well, which is very important to me (and I think most of my colleagues as well) at a job :)